Anastasia poked her head above the upturned table to observe smoke swirling around the room, quickly clearing to reveal a group of deactivated Cybermen on the floor, while the Doctor stood over him with a look on this face that almost looked smug. She quickly surveyed around – Nikolai was next to her, covered in dust from the damage to the bunker, but otherwise seemingly fine. Kilensky was not far from him, now stood up facing the Doctor and with his usual furious face
"What the hell did you do!" he shouted, as the other soldiers followed him up to their feet, recovering their weapons and checking their fallen comrades for signs of life, mostly without luck.
"Oh, you mean with this EMP charge? I set it off and disabled the Cybermen's electrical compomnents. Thought you'd have been able to work that one out. Catch." The Doctor tossed the EMP charge to Kilensky who caught it.
"I gathered that!" he barked. "I meant before then. And why did you wait until I lost good people," as he pointed at one of the bodies.
The Doctor by now was surveying the computer banks with his sonic screwdriver. "I used a quick logical impossibility to confuse their logic circuits. I knew it would only work for a few seconds or so before they would regain control, but it gave me those last few seconds I needed before that-" he nodded at the EMP charge that Kilensky had by now passed on to Nikolai "-recharged. I'm sorry I couldn't do it sooner but I needed to it to be at full strength before it worked."
Kilensky was by no means appeased. "You knew this would happen."
"I planned for it in case it was a possibility. I hoped it wouldn't come to it but it did. Unfortunate, but these things happen, and look on the bright side! You're alive! Now shut up for a moment so I can look at these computers."
"What do you hope to find from them, Doctor?" asked Nikolai.
"Oh, any small bits of information I can get from the transmission. Precise point of transmission, galactic codes, that sort of thing. Anything that might help," he replied. "No luck I'm afraid. The EMP Charge did rather take care of that, a bit of a side effect. Are you alright?"
"I am, thanks to you," Nikolai replied, quickly checking to make sure Kilensky had not heard.
"Oh, don't mention it. Where's Anastasia?"
Anastasia had spent the duration of this conversation sat cross-legged behind the table, half listening to what the men were saying and half in contemplation. Upon hearing her name, she snapped to listening. "I'm here and I'm fine." She stood up to face the Doctor.
"Glad to hear," he replied. "What were you thinking about just then."
"Everything really. All the Tsar said..." she started.
"Don't think about that," said the Doctor. "Not yet, anyway."
She nodded – he was right. Dispel doubts from her mind – he was a cold man taunting those he thought he had vanquished. And yet... did he really have the power over time and space.
"We need to get back to the Winter Palace, pronto," said the Doctor. "This won't be the quick in-and-out I had hoped for. I need to find out why you're so important, Anastasia, I need to recover your biodata, I need to stop the Cybermen getting the power of time travel and I need to get my TARDIS back or I'm going nowhere fast."
Anastasia took that moment to survey her surroundings. The bunket had been dilapidated before the fight, but the gunfire and explosions had not done it any favours – it was practically falling apart. Dust kept falling from the ceiling – it had practically turned the Doctor's brown hair grey and she had to imagine it had done something similar to hers. The pillars creaked, everything was wrecked. A sad state for the Resistance to end up in, she supposed. From her time before her capture, her brother had regarded them as disorganised but righteous warriors, people who he could help – his fatal mistake. From her time in the palace, she soon got the impression of them as a nuisance, but with their base degraded to this condition? The Tsar would barely have to acknowledge their existence apart from sending one last Cyber-army to wipe them out. The only way to stop him now was the Doctor – although frankly, he may have been the only way in the first place. It was difficult for her to really know and she still didn't know if she was thinking straight.
"I take it when you say 'we' you mean you and I," she said.
"I do indeed," said the Doctor. "I'll need you there for quite a few reasons I don't have the time and energy to go into now."
"I will accompany you," said Makarovich, not realising who had returned standing behind him at this point.
"Oh no you are not," barked Kilensky.
"Actually, he would be rather helpful..." pondered the Doctor.
"I don't care!" Kilensky snapped. "We have indulged you for long enough Doctor. If it wasn't for you-"
"You'd all be dead!" the Doctor shouted, raising his voice to well above Kilensky's. "You think the Tsar didn't know where you were already? That I was the one who led him to you? Use your brain, as impossible to see with the naked eye as it is. The only reason he waited as long as he did was so he could have all his eggs in one neat little basket. I just saved your life, so pack in your irritating whining." He lowered his voice and body language again. "Now, Makarovich would be an excellent help in trying to stop the Tsar getting the power of time travel which would render your little group even more moot than it already is. And besides, you still don't have the whereabouts of your Mr Kazonokov, do you?"
Kilensky knew when he was beaten. "Take them and get out Makarovich," he hissed. "When you're done and if you're still alive, you know how you can contact us to find where we've gone. I don't know where we'll be, but it won't be here."
"Understood, sir," he said. "Hopefully, Kazokonov will be with me."
"I doubt it," Kilensky muttered. "Goodbye Doctor. I hope I don't see you again." He eyed Anstasia who glared back at him. "I can't even pretend I care much about you."
"The feeling is mutual," she hissed at him. "Can we go?" she said to the Doctor and Nikolai.
(-)
The three had managed no further than the door of the ruined base before spotting their first immediate problem.
"That's a lot of Cybermen... " Nikolai pondered.
"It is rather," said the Doctor. "You don't happen to have any EMP charges left, do you."
"Most of them were destroyed," he replied. "The only you had was the only one."
"I had to burn it out, that won't be usable again," he said.
"So what do we do?" asked Anstasia. "They'll spot us before long."
"There's one abandoned tunnel leading from here," said Nikolai. "Leads to that abandoned factory -" he pointed at a group of ruined buildings in the distance. "The only problem is it seems pretty likely there'll be just as many Cybermen there."
"It's worth a go," said the Doctor. "With a bit of natural cover we might do a bit better than here in open country. After you," he said, and Nikolai scrambled about before kicking a piece of wood to reveal the tunnel.
(-)
They emerged at the other end in a giant factory hall. The Doctor was initially surprised to see such a large factory out in the Russian countryside – there had been no Stalin to industrialise in this universe. His surprise was short lived however, as soon as they arrived it became very apparent what this was. It was an old Cyber-factory, possibly one of the earliest they had built. No doubt tens of thousands of lives were destroyed here, turned into Cybermen. Everything that made a person a person removed and shoved into a metal casing. This was a reminder of the evil that have befallen this Earth and what he had been fighting against every time he had met the Cybermen since that fateful day at the North Pole – he was fighting for the survival of natural life.
They emerged in the ruins of a giant hall, the walls at least a hundred feet high. The roof had mostly deteriorated, but many gantries and walkways at the upper levels remained in situ. Metal was the only material, grey was the only colour. Where vegetation would normally have taken hold, there was only the sterile stench of toxic sludge.
"There aren't any here," said Anastasia as they emerged from the tunnel.
"There will be," said Nikolai grimly. "They just haven't found us yet."
The trio walked for a minute or two, through the ruined hall. The Doctor did not initially know if Anastasia knew what this was, but the grim expression on her face betrayed that she knew well what this was and she had similar views to his. Only she had seen it all happen first-hand this time.
His thought was shattered by a sudden startling cry from behind them – but a cry that was utterly flat and emotionless.
"ROGUE ELEMENTS DETECTED. DESTROY."
"Scatter," hissed the Doctor, and the trio dispersed.
(-)
Anastasia reached a support for one of the higher walkways – with Cybermen closing in both from behind them and from the sides of the hall, through gaps in the structure created by decay, she had little other choice but to go up. Luckily she could do up quite well, and she began to climb.
(-)
The Doctor and Nikolai had run in a similar direction. Doding weapons fire from the Cybermen, the Doctor dived behind some rubble to take shelter, with Nikolai undertaking a similar action on the other side of the hall. He returned fire with his sidearm but the Doctor did not need to tell him it was a mostly futile endeavour. He scanned the exits – Cybermen entering from most he could see, but there was one gap in the wall a little ahead of them that looked clear, if only they could get to it.
"Makarvovich," he shouted and gestured. Nikolai nodded and headed off, as the Doctor did.
(-)
Up above Anastasia had made her way onto a walkway – she'd had to climb inside the support structure in order to dodge weapons fire, which had made getting onto the walkway itself difficult, especially as she was out of practice. But she had managed it, only to find another Cyberman up there with her.
"Stop! You will be destroyed."
"Bring it on, svo-lach" she hissed and began to run in the direction of the two humanoid figures she could make out on the ground, running towards what she guessed was an exit of some kind. There was one problem – the walkway had fractured, leaving a large gap. There was a gantry structure she could climb on... but some of those jumps were quite big. And she hadn't climbed in a long time.
A ricochet of Cyber-weapon fire made up her mind. And besides, a 50ft drop to the ground would be a much better way to go than falling to those Cyber-beasts. Anastasia made her choice and her first jump onto the gantry structure.
(-)
The Doctor had reached Nikolai and nearly reached their exit.
"I told you there would be Cybermen here," shouted Nikolai as they kept running.
"Why are there so many," pondered the Doctor. Never mind, he though to himself. Questions for later, questions for when they had-
Escaped. Their grand exit, their escape plan, there were now just as many Cybermen there are as elsewhere. They were surrounded.
The Doctor shot his hands up. "We surrender. We surrender, take us to your leader. He'll want us alive."
"Negative," said the lead Cyberman flatly. "We have been ordered to destroy you, Doctor."
"Well I'm counteracting those orders!" he yelled. Anything to buy a little time, time for him to think of something.
"Negative, you have no authority. Destro-" The Cybermen had raised its weapon before a large metal structure suddenly came crashing down on it, crushing it and a number of its fellow Cybermen. The Doctor and Nikolai took the hint and dashed for the exit. The Doctor noticed the frayed ropes on the gantry, and looked up – to see Anastasia on a walkway above him, knife in hand, having cut the ropes holding the metal structure up.
"Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all."
(-)
What goes up, must come down, Anastasia thought. And there were now quite a few Cybermen converging on her position, so down as soon as possible would be preferable, she thought to herself. But how? Back at home she had climbed carefully down taking as much time as she needed – hardly an option here. Her eyes darted as she looked for a way out, like putting a puzzle together in her mind. Jump down to that gantry down there, use that rope to swing to that lower walkway, then use that rubble to get down – bingo.
"Still got it," she muttered to herself before she took a run and jump.
(-)
"How are we going to lose them," panted Nikolai as he and the Doctor kept running.
"Oh, I have an idea," said the Doctor, taking out his sonic screwdriver. "I'm going to bet a lot of the conversion machinery is still in this factory, which after 100 years might not be in the best condition. Were I to start them all off at full speed..."
"It would explode," yelled Nikolai as the two dived behind another bit of cover as Cybermen began to catch up with them. "Then what are you waiting for?"
"Well we need to get clear, don't we. Bit pointless if said explosion consumed us. Plus I can't see where Anastasia is."
Nikolai cleared his throat and pointed ahead. There she was – made it to the ground, beckoning them to follow.
"She's rather good, isn't she," said the Doctor. "After you."
(-)
As soon as the trio reunited, the Doctor turned to Nikolai. "I think we're clear enough don't you."
"Clear enough for what?" asked Anastasia, barely bothering to hide the adrenaline surging through her.
"A rather big bang!" yelled the Doctor, pushing the other two down to the ground before squeezing his sonic screwdriver.
KABOOOOM!
(-)
Anastasia coughed. It turns up being pushed to the ground, nearly being deafened by an explosion then covered in rubble is enough to kill an adrenaline rush – who knew? She looked at the Doctor and Nikolai – both also seemed unharmed. The factory had collapsed from the explosion, crushing most of the Cybermen, with the explosion dealing with most of the rest. Still, who knew how many had survived.
"Time to go," she said, standing up.
The Doctor coughed and looked up at her. "One moment to regain what few of my senses remain."
Both men stood up after a few moments. "Impressive climbing there."
"I'm in good practice," she said. "Or at least I used to be."
"Does it so happen," asked the Doctor, "that the answer to the question 'how did you assume yourself at home' was 'take up climbing on your house and grounds.'"
"It does," she smiled. "You approve."
The Doctor stared her down. "I'm not sure. It was impressive though. Wasn't it Makarovich."
Nikolai was still coughing his lungs out. "Sure, whatever you say... can we go now?"
"Probably a good idea," said the Doctor.